


18. Muffled Scream

by titC



Series: Whumptober 2019 [18]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Panic Attack, whumptober2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-10-24 18:04:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20710265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: It was supposed to be a fun ghost train ride.





	18. Muffled Scream

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Whumptober](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/) for organizing it and [PixelByPixel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/) for the beta!  
Also fills my MattElektraBingo prompt _Please don't let me go_ and the MattElektraShiptober prompt _Scare_.

Why had she agreed to go along with it?

It was, of course, Karen’s fault. She’d suggested it, and Franklin and Matthew had loved the idea, and that’s how Elektra had found herself with their little band, riding the subway to Coney Island. She couldn’t quite decide what the worst part was in all of this. She avoided public transportation as much as she could; it was noisy and smelly and crowded and just… unpleasant. It was also, in this case, underground, and after Midland Circle – well. She preferred being above ground, that was all.

Matthew didn’t seem bothered, or if he was he didn’t show it. Franklin’s girlfriend didn’t look like the kind to often ride the subway either, but here she was, sans stilettos for once but still looking perfectly at ease. Elektra liked Marci; she was no-nonsense and had a wardrobe one could only approve of: professional, stylish, but also designed to let you know you were going to lose. The opposite of Franklin’s style; he was more of the harmless-looking school of lawyering. He was, however, very, very good at what he did; he simply let his opponents _believe_ he wasn’t. Elektra, albeit reluctantly, had to approve of Matthew’s choice of friends. They were strong people who’d often been good to him.

Of course, she wasn’t as much of a fan of Karen Page, but Elektra was self-aware enough to know it was because they had more in common than she’d like: Karen was ruthless when she had a goal, and she wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger when she felt she had to. Literally so, as Elektra had learned, and that was something she could respect. Karen was here with a… friend, she’d said, although it looked like said friend might be on the way to be something different, given how close they were sitting. Jason Ellison was everyone’s definition of a nice man and talked literature and cats, which made for quite the contrast with Ms. Sharp Edges And Concealed Carry Permit. It was, Elektra decided, amusing… and beneath her consideration.

Finally, they reached Coney Island and joined the masses to go on rides and eat fair (in a restricted meaning of fair) food and do whatever it was people did in these places. Elektra tried to hide her shudder, but Matthew felt it running through her arm and smiled at her.

“Relax,” he said. “We’re here to have fun, have a good time, mingle with people… We can’t all keep to fancy apartments in the Upper East Side.”

Elektra frowned. “_Mingle_.” She graciously took the churros Franklin handed her and nodded her thanks.

“My dad had promised we’d come here for my tenth birthday, but then I was,” he waved his hand in front of his face, “so it didn’t happen.”

“And you haven’t found time until now?”

“We came a couple times when we were in law school, actually,” Franklin said. “We saved up so we could really do everything we wanted. And eat all the hot dogs,” he added dreamily.

“I liked the dark rides best,” Matthew said.

“Smash cans, win stuffed bears. I want to smash _all the cans_.” Karen’s smile was slightly predatory.

As for Marci, she wasn’t in the mood for for can smashing. “The Cyclone! That’s my favorite.”

“The basketball thing!”

“Jason, you can’t even aim paper at the trash can; what makes you think you can throw a basketball?”

Elektra sighed, and braced for a long day.

It _was_ a long day, but it wasn’t as unpleasant as she’d feared. She actually had fun, and hanging out with Matthew’s friends turned out to be less of a chore than she’d feared. They even seemed to warm up to her instead of tolerating her for Matthew’s sake, which was unnecessary but not unwelcome after all. Besides, Matthew had that wide, infectious smile that meant he was happy, and that was a good enough reason to go along with anything that caused it.

They decided to end the day with ghost trains and they piled up in a car. As Elektra understood these things the point of these rides was to snuggle up to your lover in fear, and so she braced for papier-mâché bats, fans behind dingy bedsheets, and recorded shrieking. She refused to play the coy, scared weakling in need of reassurance and she doubted Matthew would either. Still, as soon as they left daylight behind and started the ride, she took his hand in hers. No one would see them.

Matthew was delighted; she could hear his muffled giggling at every _OoooooOOOOooooh_ that came through slightly tinny speakers. He snorted into her shoulder when a creaky skeleton shook its scythe at them, kissed her neck while he was at it, and from what she could tell he was having the time of his life.

Elektra, however, wasn’t. The vague disquiet that had started to creep up her belly from the moment they’d entered the tunnel was now reaching her throat and threatening to choke her. She’d never been afraid of the dark before; what was wrong with her? She resolved to ignore whatever it was, and decided maybe it had been that hot dog. Certainly not the mechanical bats flapping their wire-and-fabric wings above her, or the dust in the air, the smell of blood, the feel of concrete blocks crumbling all over her and tearing Matthew away from her and trying to run away but she couldn’t and

and

“Breathe. Come on, Elektra, _please_, breathe, breathe with me.”

The soft, too soft voice was unexpected in the ear-splitting cacophony of a building collapsing around her, of metal beams shrieking and cinder blocks crashing down. And something was still crushing her chest, her lungs. She couldn’t get oxygen; she was choking on ash and – no. No, she was bent over her knees, her face hidden in her arms. There was another sound, then, that she thought she knew. Ought to know, at least. Screaming? It was muffled, and it resonated in her throat – it was her. She was screaming; why was she screaming? No one could hear her under the tons and tons of steel and concrete, and Matthew was… Matthew was…

“Give me your hand, okay? Please.”

She resisted, but in the end she couldn’t fight for long.

“That’s it, that’s good. Can you feel me breathing, now? Come on, do it with me.”

Elektra felt like crying, but crying was pointless. Stick would have laughed at her if he’d ever seen her cry because… because…

“You got out, remember? So did I. We got out, we found each other, we’re good, we’re okay. We got out, in the end.”

Finally, she recognized it. Him.

“Matthew?” She forced her eyes open, and the brightness of the outside almost blinded her. She wasn’t caught under Midland Circle, under dragon bones, under the Hand; she was Elektra Natchios, free from all of what came before. She’d escaped. She’d survived.

“Is she better?”

“I’ll call a cab,” another voice said.

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”

“Matthew,” Elektra repeated. Her eyes finally got used to the light and she saw Matthew’s friends were forming a loose circle around them, keeping her from the more curious eyes.

“We got out,” he repeated. “We’re okay.”

“I’d lost you. I thought…” She wanted to plead, _Please don’t let me go ever again_, but she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. Shameful. Saying them was shameful; being afraid of saying them also was.

Matthew sat right next to her. “I don’t really remember much,” he said. “Not like you do. The only thing I could say afterwards, for weeks, was your name. But we made it.”

“It was a stupid ghost ride.”

“You had a panic attack.”

“I’ve never had a panic attack. I should be stronger than that.” Her heart was still beating too fast, even now.

“Your cab should be here in a few minutes,” Franklin said. “As soon as you’re up to it, we’ll walk with you to the exit, all right?”

“Of course I’m up to it.” She stood up too fast and Matthew steadied her, the blind man’s arm her anchor instead of the other way round. “Let’s go.”

True to Franklin’s words, Matthew’s friends shielded her from view as they left the steps where she’d been sitting, but they didn’t prevent her from hearing them.

A little girl, right behind them, asked what had happened, and Elektra briefly wished she were deaf. People would mock her, of course, but she didn’t need to hear it.

“Something triggered her,” a soft female voice answered. “Like your daddy sometimes, remember?”

“But daddy’s a soldier,” the little girl said.

Elektra never heard the answer, they were almost at the cab; but when she looked back, no one was laughing. Marci’s jacket was on her shoulders, Jason hovered at her side and glared at anyone coming too close, Franklin was talking with the cabbie.

Maybe she could trust a few people beyond herself and Matthew.


End file.
